


Labor of love

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Hospitals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8130356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: They’re playing gin rummy on the front porch when the phone rings.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> For Jouissant, who asked for "labor of love." Also, I've now written two stories that involve Nix driving Dick to a family event. I honestly didn't realize it until I went to post. I'm fine with this very specific trope of mine.

They’re playing gin rummy on the front porch when the phone rings.

Nix is closer to the door, so he stands. He points an accusatory finger, though he’s smiling. “Don’t you go peeking at my cards,” he warns before sauntering inside. He leaves his glass on the bench with his hand.

Dick considers it. It’s not as if the stakes are higher than some ribbing over the dinner they’ll go fix after this game. The appeal lies entirely in the loud laugh he’s sure he can surprise out of Nix if it comes to light that Dick Winters has cheated at cards, no matter his intentions about it. He can almost see the proud shake of Nix’s head, hear the boom of his laugh. He’s reaching across the bench when Nix reappears in the doorway, and Dick jerks his hand back, as caught out as if Nix were a croupier at Atlantic City.

“It’s for you,” Nix says, though he doesn’t resume his place on the bench. He doesn’t appear to have noticed Dick’s wandering hands. Dick rises, a little regretful at his missed opportunity, and paces past him to the phone tucked into the corner of the kitchen.

“Don’t _you_ cheat,” he says over his shoulder, and picks up the handset. “Hello?” Nix had followed for some reason, was standing in the doorway watching him, his mouth oddly flat.

“Dick.” His mother’s voice has a sturdiness to it, boarded up like windows in the face of a storm, and Dick’s own shoulders draw back in response before his mind has even had time to process it, make the logical progression. “Your father’s in the hospital.”

Dick had learned or inherited his stillness from his mother. She didn’t waste time on tears or outbursts. If he were fine, she would say so. She doesn’t need to specify otherwise. Dick’s mind is already racing, framing a dozen questions and discarding all of them while she continues in her steady tone about his father’s stomach pains getting suddenly worse, the hospital, the doctor’s prognosis: not good. He could ask her what precise level of urgency or concern is merited for “not good,” but if nothing else, the Army had taught him decisiveness. Any intel will be more valuable if he’s there in person. Mostly, he has no idea what to do, and Dick has always thought better on the ground than trapped on the wrong end of a phone.

“I think you should come home.”

He feels as though this is for his benefit. His mother seems to be sparing him the childlike urge to run home himself. He wonders where she is right now. “I’ll be there tonight,” Dick says.

He hangs up the phone, and sees Nix start forward out of the corner of his eye. “You okay?” he asks, when Dick can’t seem to lift his hand from the receiver.

Dick yanks his hand back, heading blindly toward the stairs. “I have to go to Lancaster.” He’s already running through his mental list: razor, shirt, pants. His dark suit, for church or in case—a suit, anyway. Best to be prepared. He’s on the second step when he realizes he should check the train schedule, and whirls, almost slamming into Nix.

“I need to call the station,” he snaps, and Nix holds up his hands in surrender and lets him pass.

When Dick climbs the steps again, he finds his suitcase already on the bed, his shaving kit and shoes laid out, and the anger, misplaced as Dick had already known it was, drains out of him. Nix looks up from the dresser warily, holding two pairs of socks.

Dick feels as though he should explain or apologize, but the words stick in his throat, and he busies himself folding and packing shirts instead.

But he can only pack so many items before he runs dry, and he sinks down onto the bed next to the packed case. Nix reaches out and then shies away, resting a hand on the suitcase next to Dick’s knee. “The train doesn’t leave for three hours,” Dick says, the logistical kind of detail he can share. Nix seems to have gathered the rest of it anyway, without his saying. And then, the words scraping out, “Could I borrow your car?”

“Of course,” Nix says, too quickly.

Dick knows he’s grateful for the words, curt as they were, and the chance to offer help. He takes a breath and puts his hand over Nix’s on the suitcase, all the thanks he can offer. Nix presses his advantage. “Let me drive,” he says, turning his hand over and lacing his fingers with Dick’s. “Please.”

And Dick does.

They’re crossing the border into Pennsylvania when Dick feels his stomach twist. “I should have taken the car myself. What are they going to think when you show up like this?”

Nix considers as the windshield wipers slap away at a passing shower. “They’ll think your friend didn’t want you waiting on the train at a time like this. And if you’d taken my car, you’d strand me for the week. I can drive home tonight or tomorrow. You can catch a train back when you’re ready. I’ll handle the plant,” he adds, before Dick can follow that train of thought.

Dick doesn’t know if this reasoning rings as true as Nix’s certainty indicates, but he’s always had Nix at his shoulder when he heads into battle, so now seems like a bad time to break a streak. He subsides into the passenger window, watching the rain paint patterns on the windshield.

They drive through the storm or it passes over them, but the ground is still damp outside the hospital when the pull up, the pavement odorous the way it only gets after a summer storm. Dick swings his legs out of the car and then loses his momentum, staring at the open maw of the main entrance. Behind him, Nix shifts in his seat, hands running absently over the leather of the steering wheel.

“Look, Dick.” And Dick is already moving, because he doesn’t want to listen to Nix’s reassurances, because he knows what he’s there to do, because if he looks at Nix he’ll either hit something or crack apart. “I’m gonna go find a hotel room,” Nix says to his back, and Dick pauses guiltily. “I’ll drop your bags off once you’ve had a chance to check in here, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dick agrees, turning and pressing his hand to the doorframe. Nix’s eyes are on him, eyebrows drawn together in worry, and Dick swallows. “See you in a bit.”

The hospital is a maze, but it’s so quiet compared to the army units Dick saw that it nearly unnerves him. He hasn’t been in a civilian hospital since high school, when an overenthusiastic teammate checked him into a bleacher during a scrimmage game and cracked his head open. He’d lost consciousness and painted the gym floor like a crime scene, but he’d gone back home that same night with nothing but a few stitches to show for the excitement.

When he finally finds the correct room, his mother and sister rise from their seats with the weariness of those already in mourning. His father’s eyes are closed, but the pained rasp of his breathing marks him as still among the living. Dick tucks Ann’s head under his chin when he hugs her, but she’s quickly catching up to him, and she has to duck her head to fit the embrace. He holds his mother for a long time.

He and Ann take turns sitting by his father’s side. He’s far enough along that the doctors won’t chase them out entirely, but they won’t allow more than two of them in the room at once, either. Ann walks him around to the restrooms, the nurse’s station, the sparse waiting room with its burnt smelling coffeepot and lonely Coke machine.

“The doctor said we’re just waiting,” she says, while Dick drops a nickel into the slot and the machine drops a glass bottle into the chute roughly enough to make him wince.  

“I guess we are.” He snaps the cap off and hands it to her, studying her pale face, the wisps of hair straying from the blue ribbon that had slipped off-kilter. “You’ve said your goodbye,” he says, because he has to offer it. “You can go home, if you want. I can stay with them.”

She gives him a withering look that calls to mind every time Dick had ever tracked mud into the house, or let slip a rude comment about a teacher, and his eyes widen in spite of himself. “Dick Winters,” she starts hotly, and he grabs her hand, squeezing it.

“Okay. I’m sorry. Of course you’ll stay.”

When Nix reappears two hours later, it’s with more coffee, balanced two to a hand, and they all step out of the room to say hello.

Dick’s mother kisses him on the cheek, though she’s met him exactly once before. “Thank you for bringing Dick home. Again. You’re a good young man.”

Nix looks as uncomfortable as Dick has ever seen him, but he doesn’t have to cover for long. She thanks him for the coffee and goes back into the room, clearly unwilling to leave her husband. Dick, too, feels his shoulders ease as she heads back in, much to his frustration. He knows her presence won’t hold off the inevitable. He should go back in with her, but then Ann gives Nix a sad smile and a tiny wave, and follows her in, and the room is officially full.

He leads Nix to the hard wood and metal chairs of the waiting room, and sinks down, Nix beside him.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Dick says, elbows braced on his knees, coffee dangling from one hand. He presses the other against his eyes, which feel scratchy and dry. “The doctors say it could be anytime.”

Nix wraps a hand around the back of his neck, warm from the coffee cup. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”


End file.
